Chemical and Technological Issues of the Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle

The most important problems of closed fuel cycle with the fast reactors are safety, environmental attraction (acceptability) and economic efficiency. The existing spent nuclear fuel (SNF) reprocessing technologies and mixed uranium-plutonium fuel fabrication technologies do not satisfy all these requirements. The drastic improvement of existing technologies and/or development of new ones are necessary for closing the fast reactor nuclear cycle. The non-aqueous technologies can be used for the reprocessing of fast reactor SNF with low cooling time and high burnup. However, success cannot be achieved without the reduction of the costs of all stages of SNF reprocessing and fuel fabrication. The common solution to these problems is not clear; there are many different approaches that can be used for solving separate small tasks. The review of the main directions of studies in the fast reactor fuel cycle is given in this paper. (author)